Draw Your Swords
by bravevulnerability
Summary: 'She's in the middle of seducing Nigel Wyndham with her words, earning his interest with ease, and he's about to give up that champagne glass he'd been nursing with his prints all over it, when a hand touches her waist, a throat clears. "May I cut in?"' An AU insert for 4x20, 'The Limey'.


**A/N: Just a brief prompt fill for Lou and those on Twitter who encouraged my writing of this idea. I truly hope it lives up to your expectations.**

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 _Prompt: Circumstances force Caskett to share a Knockdown-style "fake" kiss during the 47 seconds arc._

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She's in the middle of seducing Nigel Wyndham with her words, earning his interest with ease, and he's about to give up that champagne glass he'd been nursing with his prints all over it, when a hand touches her waist, a throat clears.

"May I cut in?"

Kate's lips part in surprise as Castle shoots Wyndham a charming albeit threatening smile, his eyes sweeping over her with a feral spark.

"Ah, this must be that date you spoke of?" Nigel quips, the arm at her waist faltering as the man, her lead suspect, gracefully begins to back down. "Not so uninterested any longer it seems."

She shoots Nigel a long suffering look, adds a disappointed shrug of her shoulders before leaning in close. "Don't worry, darling. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again very soon."

Rick releases an audible sound of disapproval, playing up the jealous boyfriend role, apparently, and swooping in between her and Nigel, leading her deeper onto the dance floor while the other man steps back towards the bar with a smirk.

"You shouldn't be here," she hisses when Castle fits her in close against him, his arm curving naturally, possessively around her waist, and the breadth of his chest brushing hers. But he merely smiles at her like a smug asshole, splays his palm wide at the base of her spine, and keeps her body slotted into place against his. " _Castle_."

"Security just got your boyfriend, so I'm stepping in, trying to keep your cover intact, Ms. Harrington," he mutters, stroking his thumb along the sleek fabric of her dress.

"He's not my boyfriend," Beckett snaps under her breath, curling her fingers tight at the back of his neck, punishing him with a quick stab of her nails for the brooding pout of his mouth.

"Really? Looked pretty cozy to me, Beckett," he grumbles, bruising his fingers into her hip in retaliation and slicing his tongue over the t's.

It's all they do really, isn't it? Wound each other with words, with actions, with the lack of both?

"It's called acting, being undercover," she growls, gentling her grip as they sway across the dance floor, Nigel's eyes still tracking her. "Thought you were smart enough to know that by now."

"The way you and I remember your undercover skills must be very different," he muses dryly and Kate rolls her eyes, presses in closer and brushes her lips at his ear, smirks at the undeniable catch in his breath.

"If anyone's done the forgetting here, Castle, it's you," she mumbles, turning her nose into his cheek, shielding the words coming from her mouth. "Besides, I already have what I need from Wyndham. His card case is in the bust of my dress."

Castle's eyebrow arches against her temple. "I - well, okay then. Time for a smooth getaway."

"Might not be so smooth, security is heading this way," she whispers, but Castle merely glides his fingers down her arm, takes her hand with a smile claiming his lips and mischief sparking through his eyes as he begins to lead her off the dance floor.

He hasn't looked at her with a genuine smile in what's felt like so long. It's how she knows it isn't real.

"Play along, Beckett," he hums, tugging on her fingers until she quickens her step, presses against his back and buries her smile in his shoulder, holding her breath once they reach the exit and Castle pulls her through, out into an empty courtyard. Playing the role of lovers sneaking away for a stolen moment, something she could have fathomed them doing someday in the precinct against her better judgement, at one of his book parties... but that had never been in the cards for them, had it?

"Make a run for it?" she questions, still clutching his hand, repressing a shiver as they cold air caresses her bare shoulders, but Castle shakes his head, glances around, his eyes widening, and she follows his gaze.

Security is coming after them.

"No, they'll see us and they already know your face. Here, just… dumb idea," he mumbles before he presses her into the brick wall of the building, layering his body against hers as he kisses her mouth, cradles her face, and Kate moans, arches into the heat of his chest.

A ruse, just another ruse, she reminds herself, but if it's all going to be pretend, not going to count later, then she refuses to miss her opportunity. Refuses to relinquish the chance to remember the taste, the touch, the sounds of him adoring her mouth, the writhe of her body beneath his, and what will likely be her final shot to savor it.

"Kate," he gasps, panting into the open cove of her mouth, but she drags him back to her by the lapels of his suit, checks the whereabouts of the guards while her leg curls at Castle's thigh. Her ribcage expands with relief as she notices them sparing nothing more than a glance in their direction, disappearing back inside the building moments later, uninterested by the lovers' quarrel turned makeout in the shadows.

But while she may have caught the guards shrugging off their potential agenda, Castle is still wholly unaware and devoted to biting down on her bottom lip, soothing the sting with a stroke of his tongue before painting his lips to her jawline, down her throat, staining the slope of her breast with the hot exhale of his breath.

He pauses with his lips glancing her scar, makes her shudder with the purposeful, too gentle, skim of his mouth.

"Hunt isn't your partner," he gets out, one of his hands coasting up her side to skim the underside of her breast, push his thumb to the spot of her scar that is concealed with a liberal amount of foundation. "I am."

"I never said he was my partner, you jerk," she growls, tugging him up by his ears, their noses clashing as he leans in, towers over her. "But he's been acting more like one than you have lately."

"Bullshit," he snarls, his hips snapping forward, pinning her to the wall and pulling a groan from her chest. "You'd do this with him?"

"Really? Is parading blonde bimbos around my crime scenes, my precinct, your way of being a good partner?" she hisses, drawing her leg higher up his thigh, digging her heel into his calf and shivering at the slither of cold air around her exposed skin, slipping beneath the drape of her dress. "Shouldn't you be with your stupid flight attendant right now?"

His kiss bruises, but she isn't complacent in her own ferocity, rising into the punishment of his mouth, giving as good as she gets.

"Answer my question."

" _No_ ," she bites out, catching the wrist connected to the hand still at her chest, covering her scar. "I wanted you."

"You had your chance," he gruffs, tearing his hand from her grasp, but no, she isn't letting him go now. Not without an explanation, not without having a chance to say her own piece. Not without a fight.

"You don't just get to decide to stop waiting without telling me." Her hips rock sharply into his and his hands tighten on her waist, his arms snaking around her body in a hold that both constricts and revives her. "You don't get to just leave me alone in - in this."

His mouth stutters over hers, his brow furrowing while his eyes flutter open, dark and narrowing on her. "This?"

"Please," she rasps, the exhaustion of it all - the night, the last few weeks, the wondering she's spent over his anger, his apparent hurt, towards her, and what she had done to cause it - seeping through her, washing over, and she cups her hands at his nape, bridges her fingers there to stay him. "Just - don't stop, don't leave me alone."

His head shakes, knocking into hers, and she buries her fingers in his hair.

"It hurts too much," he croaks out, his breath hot and uneven against her naked shoulder, his hands fisting in her dress. "Loving you."

"No," she breathes, dropping her cheek to rest against his. "I - I haven't even had the chance to love you back, don't stop before I can even-"

His head lifts, startled eyes staring down at her, and she does her best to refrain from getting distracted by his kiss swollen mouth, from surging up to tend to the parted lips that call for hers.

"You - say that again," he murmurs, desperation bleeding bright in his glowering blue eyes, and Kate relocates her hands to his cheeks, cradles his troubled and hopeful face in her palms, brushes her thumb to the corner of his mouth.

"That I love you back?"

Her heart stumbles against her ribs at the unexpected return of his mouth on hers, kissing her with a different kind of ferocity, urgency, a need that isn't solely primal nor raging. He kisses her like he's found salvation, like oxygen to a breathless man, and she releases a soft moan as he slows, brushing tender grazes of his mouth to her lips.

"Precinct," she mumbles, her eyes having a hard time staying open, fluttering with every touch of his mouth, inhale of his chest that pushes into hers, caress of his broad hands to her bare back. "Drop off the evidence. Then home."

"Home?" he echoes, and Kate nods, lowers one of her hands from his face to drift down his side, finds a set of his fingers at her waist and slide hers into place between them.

"Your home, my home - wherever you can take this dress off of me, Castle."

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 _"_ _You are mine, I am yours,_

 _Let's not fuck around."_

 _-Draw Your Swords by Angus & Julia Stone_


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